Brad Pitt’s Best Role Is Actually In This 2011 Sports Movie

Brad Pitt has appeared in several great movies over the years, but his best role was in a 2011 sports movie that earned him an Oscar. Pitt starred in Moneyball as real-life Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane, a man who built the team by using statistics and analytics rather than scouting suggestions. The man changed baseball scouting for several teams.

Brad Pitt earned an Oscar nomination for his performance, and the movie earned a Best Picture nomination. Pitt is back in the news again in 2025, thanks to his role in the critically acclaimed box office success F1, which puts him in another sports drama. He can only hope that it leads to the same Oscar success he achieved with Moneyball.

Brad Pitt Is At His Best In Moneyball

Brad Pitt Proved He Could Play A Regular Character

Brad Pitt has enjoyed considerable critical success throughout his career. As an actor, he has earned four Oscar nominations and has also earned three more as a producer in the Best Picture category. Pitt has won only one Oscar for acting, taking home the Best Supporting Actor award for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

However, while he won for that Quentin Tarantino film, his best performance might be from a movie for which he didn’t win an Oscar. Pitt’s other three Oscar nominations were for 12 Monkeys, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Moneyball. Of those three films, Moneyball is the only one in which Pitt acted in a non-fantastical role.

While 12 Monkeys was a sci-fi time-travel movie and Benjamin Button was a fantasy about a man aging backward, Moneyball was Pitt’s chance to prove he could deliver a masterful performance as a regular guy in the real world. While Billy Beane was larger than life, it was still a performance that proved Pitt was one of the best actors in the game.

Brad Pitt Was Nominated For An Oscar For Moneyball

Brad Pitt Has Six Oscar Nominations

As mentioned, Brad Pitt has received six Oscar nominations over his career. Three of these were for producing (Moneyball, 21 Years a Slave, The Big Short). However, he has only won twice: once for 12 Years a Slave, and his only acting win came as a supporting actor in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

His first nomination was for Best Supporting Actor, where Pitt overacted for most of 12 Monkeys as a man on the edge who wanted to cause anarchy. He was then nominated for a role as a man who was aging backwards in the David Fincher masterpiece, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Those two films have Pitt in a gimmick role, and he was fantastic in both cases.

However, Moneyball was different. Pitt had to portray a real-life person. Billy Beane wasn’t an over-the-top personality; he was a regular guy with big ideas and the desire to prove he could build a winning team. It was a sports drama about analytics, and as hard as that was to sell, Pitt’s performance elevated the film, and he deserved all the award recognition he received.

Moneyball Helped Laid The Groundwork For F1

Brad Pitt Has Helped Turn F1 Into A Major Success

Over a decade after Brad Pitt proved his excellence in a sports drama about crunching data and numbers, he returned in an inspirational sports movie that was all about action. However, as Pitt proved in Moneyball, he could elevate the film by delivering a fantastic performance, often even overshadowing the intense car racing action.

F1 is a movie about Formula One racing, and Pitt plays an aging driver who wants to prove he still has what it takes on the track. It is an excellent performance, reminding fans of why the actor received such high praise for Moneyball many years ago.